Later that morning I passed a city. The buildings were made of logs and mud, and looked quite different from the castle. The greenness of Lilikeen had disappeared overnight and been replaced with only the occasional patch of grass and wild clusters of trees.

That whole day, I sat nibbling on loaves of bread and wondering what would happen if no one woke me up in my room. What if they couldn’t wake me up? What if my mother had tried and tried and eventually she hadn’t known what to do, so she called for an ambulance and I was in some rarely visited wing of the hospital on life support because I was actually in a coma?

What if my mom woke up, but didn’t look in on me and just went about her day thinking I had already gone to my job? 

I didn’t know and I drove myself crazy until the sun went down for the second time. 

That time, however, when I was poking around in the supplies Tremor had left me, I found a different looking package with Sarafina’s name on it. I opened it up and found a dress. It was white with a drawstring neckline, short sleeves, a light billowing skirt, and what looked like half a corset sewn into the dress, but it allowed me to do it up in the front. The weave of the fabric was like one of those ancient flour sacks my mother still used to mop up spills. I pried myself out of my dress and replaced it with Tremor’s gift. It was far more practical since it was getting hotter as I traveled further south.

Then I remembered what the Queen had said about men saluting me while I wore a black and red gown. Life in Sealoch probably wasn’t anything like she imagined. No one from Lilikeen had been there before. Most likely, she had no idea to what circumstances she was sending her daughter.

On the third day, I saw only one person and he motioned for me not to go any further. The whole exchange really freaked me out—no exaggeration.

The man paddled up to me in his rowboat and said, “Girl, don’t go that way. There is nothing that way. Come with me. I will guide you to shore.”

I felt like caving in and going with him, but I had to stick with the plan. That was how the story went. “I can’t,” I said regretfully.

“You must. That way only leads to Sealoch, the water monsters, and the war. Come with me.”

“That’s where I’m going,” I insisted.

He didn’t listen to me and prepared to throw a rope over to my helm when something under the water caught his attention. “Don’t move! A capricorn is under your boat.”

I wanted to dispel my ignorance as quickly as possible since the monsters could be like sea lions or something else I understood. I closed my eyes for a moment in preparation. Then I opened them up again and stuck my head over the water even though I was afraid. I didn’t see anything at all.

“What’s a monster like that doing this far north?” the man gasped. “It’s not natural.”

“I don’t see anything,” I said, staring into the water. 

“You see the black?” the man questioned.

“It all looks black to me,” I scoffed. I still couldn’t see anything. I gave the man a dirty look, withdrew into the tent, and closed the flap. 

“Girl, catch my rope!” I heard the man yell.

“I’m going to see Prince Tremor. Leave me alone.”

After I said that, I didn’t hear anything else. I guessed the man was leaving me alone since I didn’t stick my head out of the tent again that day. I was hungry because I was bored and lying in the rocking boat made me sleepy. 

I thought of my body in the hospital. Surely I wouldn’t get fired from a babysitting job for being in a coma. That thought cheered me up and soon I was sleeping again.

The day after that, the river and the land were different yet again. The river was wider and the land even more desolate. There were only rocks and odd stretches of bare yellow earth on the river banks. The sun was hotter too, and I became grateful for the tent that shielded me from the heat.

I couldn’t help thinking about what the man had said the day before, but I didn’t know what to make of it. It was a temptation to keep my curtain shut all day so that I wouldn’t see the depressing landscape, or catch a glimpse of anything that might be in the water. That was what I wanted to do, but I didn’t because the heat was oppressive, and if there was a breeze I wanted to catch it.

In the end, my curiosity got the better of me and I found myself staring over the edge of the boat from time to time. The river moved slowly and sometimes I dared to stick my fingers or toes in the water just to cool down. The water seemed really deep, not like it had where I picked up the boat. There it seemed little more than a stream. It had become green and black. Its depth seemed fathomless. Yet, when I stared directly down, I thought I saw tiny yellow lights under the surface. It was almost like the sunlight was reflecting on bits of metal. Maybe they were shells. I sighed. Actually, I just wanted to jump in. I was a good swimmer, but I was too scared. What if I lost the boat? I had to content myself with dipping my feet in.

I put my foot in the water and suddenly I saw an eye. All at once all the ease and boredom I had been experiencing vanished. It was just as Murmur had described. I saw a huge yellow eye looking at me from just under the surface of the water. At first, I thought it was a piece of garbage that had floated downstream, but as I reached out to see if I could grab it, it blinked. I recoiled in absolute horror. Its pupil wasn’t round, but long and round like a frog’s. Then I saw its hide flutter the water’s surface as it swam past me. Its skin was onyx black. For a moment I thought I saw sticky strands of hair, but when I looked again, I clearly saw scales. Then the monster dove further beneath the water and I couldn’t tell where its body ended.

I shut the curtain and tied it. I was rigid and hot with sweat. I had never seen anything like that in my whole life. I was supposed to find the capricorns amusing and beautiful, like a nature film on walruses. Instead, I was trembling from head to foot, praying, and crying. Why couldn’t I wake up back home in my own bed? Afterward, I didn’t open the curtains again and every time I felt the boat rock a little harder than usual, I imagined I was getting knocked around by a monster under the water.

That night I didn’t sleep. The sun went down but I stayed awake in the darkness. Then, in the midnight hours, my boat hit something and with some scary rocking, it stopped moving. I had been praying I would reach Sealoch soon and that Tremor would come and take me away, but no one came on board. Had I made it? Then the stench came. What was that smell? The fear in my heart was incredible, and I couldn’t make myself take a look until I figured out what was making that smell. What could it be?

Then something rammed the boat underwater. It was a capricorn! 

RAM!

I screamed.

RAM!

I jumped and covered my mouth.

RAM!

I had to shut up and calm down. I was only afraid because I didn’t know exactly what was out there. I crossed myself even though I wasn’t Catholic and braced myself. I came out of the tent and onto the bow of the boat. Turning around I nearly tripped and took a nosedive into the giant yellow eye of a decaying capricorn. I glanced down at its body, the flesh around the monster’s torso had been eaten away and I could see its ribs and guts shining in the moonlight. I hardly registered the monster’s true form. It was too dark. The only thing that I understood was that the capricorn was beached and my boat had snagged itself on its rotting carcass. In my scramble to get away, I fell straight back into the river. 

My whole body was immersed in the dark water and I fought against my dress and the current to get my face up to the surface. In those seconds, I had been carried beyond the boat and I couldn’t swim back to it. The water was moving too fast for me. I would only be able to make it back to the boat if I was able to get on the shore. Desperately, I tried to fight against the water to make it to the right shore, but even when I got there; the sides of the river were high and rocky. How was I supposed to get up on the rocks and back to the boat?

The water was moving fast and I was getting pulled under when a black slippery thing pushed me waist-high out of the water. I screamed. It felt like there was a wet horse under me. It stayed under me for a few seconds before disappearing, but I got all the breath I needed to last a few more minutes before I was dropped back into the water. I fought hard to keep my head above the surface, but my dress was weighing me down. The water horse came under me again and threw my body up in the air long enough for me to get two breaths. I pulled the tie on the bottom of my bodice and then the drawstring on the neckline. The dress came loose and just fell off me. Then it was easier to stay afloat. When the riverbank smoothed out a fraction, I grabbed hold of a rock and pulled myself onto the shore.

I sat in my underwear, the unflattering, lacy shorts, and button-up-the-front slip shirt, staring at the moonlit water. Looking down the course of the river, I couldn’t see my boat or the dead capricorn. I couldn’t see anything but the white ripples in the water and what looked like broken sticks floating away. The sparse bear surroundings suddenly looked so peaceful compared to the danger of the water, I was lucky I didn’t drown. Unhappily, I was on the wrong side of the river to get to my boat. Even if I could get to it, how could I approach the rotten sea monster to get the craft dislodged? I couldn't do it by myself.

Even though the day had been hot, the night wasn’t. I sat on the rocks, my heart rate finally slowing as the cold set in. Then I started to tremble. I pushed myself to walk. If I walked down the riverbank, eventually I would come to Sealoch. Granted, I wasn’t supposed to arrive in my underwear, on foot with no shoes, but there was nothing else for it. If I stayed still I would freeze so I had to find help.

I walked all night but saw no towns, no houses—nothing. Eventually, I dried out and felt warmer, but not comfortable.

In my desperation, I acknowledged things could have been worse. The stones underfoot were weather-worn and no worse than walking on smooth pavement. That didn’t cure my hunger, or my thirst, or the cold.

When the morning came, I saw something white lying in a curve of the river. I went to inspect it, though I was half afraid it was another animal carcass. As I got closer, I recognized it. It was my dress. 

I couldn’t believe my eyes. It was my dress? How? What was it doing there? I bent down and scooped it up in my hands. It wasn’t dry, but there it was. I almost cried, I was so happy. With it, I could at least go to the castle clothed. How excellent! 

When the sun got higher that morning, I saw something else—the castle.

The castle at Sealoch was placed on a piece of jutting rock that stretched slightly over the ocean near the mouth of the river. It was made of white square slabs of rock and had one round turret that reached five levels high. However, the floors didn’t go one on top of each other like a skyscraper. Instead, each floor was smaller as one traveled upwards. The top of the tower was ridged with archery notches and four tall flagpoles raised the black and red flags. The fourth level had a separate little room that clung to the tower. The lower floors were hidden by walls and foliage.

As I walked closer I saw the winding trail that led upward to the castle and alongside the soldier encampment. There seemed to be thousands of tiny huts sprawled across the land under the castle. The roofs were made of twigs or sod and the walls were made of rock.

I slid my dress on over my head and retied the drawstring and the bodice. The air around me was warm enough that I didn’t care that the many folds in the skirt had not yet completely dried. I was just happy to have found an actual road by which I could walk. Hopefully, someone would see me and give me a ride (something I regularly daydreamed about in the city).

It was further than it looked. I marched onward and my soft, city feet took a beating they didn't deserve. 

As the sun came down, I found myself at the bottom of the hill with the castle right in front of me. The sun dipped behind its walls and I sat on the ground to rest a bit. It was a relief to me that I would be at the castle before nightfall. I didn’t think I could manage another night outside. I was downright exhausted as it was.

Then I saw someone come out of a large black door in the white stone wall. He was half as tall as the door, but he walked with a determination I had never seen in a human being before. I got to my feet to greet him since it didn’t seem right to meet someone important crumpled in a sniveling heap on the ground. I would have been more poised, except it wasn’t easy to stand up again after I had sat down. I stood up and forced my back to be straight. I was a princess after all.

As the man got closer, my breathing and heartbeat became funny. Somewhere in the back of my head, I had been expecting it, but that didn’t stop me from being surprised when I actually saw it. 

Walking toward me was Evander. His hair was completely straight and tied back in a low ponytail. It was Evander, except that he looked strange. The expression on his face wasn’t boredom or mild irritation; it was furious indignation. Toward me? What for? I didn’t do anything wrong. I stumbled two steps backward before he stopped in front of me. I grabbed the folds of my skirt and half prepared to curtsy.

He wore a dark brown leather vest, done up with bronze buckles, and dark wool trousers with heavy boots showing under them. His arms were wrapped in bandages that seemed to be made out of the same material as my dress. They covered both his forearms and his left shoulder. His skin was super brown by contrast, but the Evander I knew always had a tan.

He was angry and it seemed to grow with each passing second. That was why I was so surprised by what he said. “I’m Tremor,” he said – leaving the ‘prince’ part out entirely. “And I want you to know that what happened to you was not part of my plan.”

“How do you know what happened to me?” I rasped. I couldn’t help rasping. My throat was dry.

 “I wrote in my letter that I sent someone to follow you. Did you see anyone?”

“No,” I whispered. “But someone rescued my dress and brought it back for me. I guess they left though, not wanting to embarrass me by seeing me…” I trailed off. I couldn’t finish that sentence.

“It doesn’t matter,” he said, suddenly closing in on me. “The real question is whether or not you still want to marry me after all you’ve been through for my sake?”

I stared. If I had known he was the prize at the end of the journey, I would have been willing to go through it again. “I want to,” I said, quietly.

After that he didn’t say another word, he simply swung me into his arms and happily off my aching feet. I rested my head on his chest and closed my eyes as he carried me up that last road to the castle.